The Four Sisters - Chapter 7

My relationship with this boy brought me a very temporary reprieve from the darkness. It did not, however bring that same reprieve to my family. Due to this, my mother made a decision. She decided to remarry. Then, to move away. Now, she did not decide to leave us there as I probably would have preferred. No, she gathered up all our things and moved us a thousand miles away. She did this for us and herself. She was spiraling.

She too had reached an all time low, though my sisters and I were unable to see it due to our own self absorption. We blamed her for taking us away. Hated her for selfishly forcing us to leave everything we knew behind. For forcing us to start over.

I was particularly angry. I had only been with my boy for a few short months before my mother forced this move on me. I hated her. I blamed her. I begged her. I cried, yelled and cured her. But, I could do nothing to keep her from her goal. She loved us and wanted to make us safe. She thought that a new beginning might ease the darkness away. That moving may pull the darkness from us. Nave. We did not understand the darkness, did not understand that moving would do nothing more than bring it along with us to our new home. It lives inside of us, and around us. It does not grow weaker from distance or time. It grows and flourished regardless. This move of hers truly shows the extent that we did not understand the darkness. Shows how little we understood it’s very nature.

My second sister was also angry with my mother. She did not want to move away to a far off place either. She, having been disappointed with her family, had begun to place her faith into her friends. Friends, as I have said before, that kept shifting and changing. Sometimes, she would be someone’s best friend, then the next day, she and the friend would barely be able to stomach the look of each other. My sister felt as if she could not trust anyone. Her distrust caused her friends to feel distrustful of her as well. She had, in the past year given up, mostly, on searching for my father. I think, my family’s callousness and the world’s apathy toward her began to dull that light within her. She began to adopt a more selfish approach to life. I don’t blame her. In all her life, no one showed any accommodation for her. No one gave to her, though they all took something. My mother was too caught up in her own darkness and loneliness. Her attempts to reach out to myself or any of my sisters were few and far between, while also being misguided and misunderstood. My youngest sister was off, in a different world most of the time. My second sister’s friends kept changing, never settling. And I, the sister that was once her closest confidant and friend growing up, took from her without hesitation or remorse. So, she too began taking without remorse. During this time, she and I barely knew each other. We did not know what the fears or future aspirations of each other were. I’m not sure if we even knew what our own fears and aspirations were. We just wanted to live. Just wanted to be happy. We didn’t care how we attained that happiness; didn’t care who was hurt in the process of gaining it.

The pursuit of happiness is a fickle thing. Most want happiness, but misunderstand what it is that will truly bring it. They think, ‘If I can just make a bit more money, I will be happy. If I can just reach my deadline, I will be happy. If I can just have more time, I will be happy.’ But, it seldom works out the way we plan it out in our minds. Money doesn’t ease the wants that we have. A deadline just reveals another on the horizon. And we don’t know what to do with any extra time that we are given. I wanted to be present, but found that once I was able to have my presence, I wasted it being someone I was not. I think this may have been the reason the darkness allowed me time in reality. I think it knew that I would not use my time to be happy, or cultivate future happiness.

This move that my mother brought us began to show me that I did not know who I was, or what I wanted. That scared me. So, I fought against it and rebelled against my mother often. I began to drift from reality once again, but this time, I blamed my mother for it. If she ha only let me stay, with that boy, I would not have to leave my body behind and wander around in that endless maze everyday. Mys sister’s cared little for my plight. I had all, but entirely burned the bridges we built as children with my cold and uncaring nature. So, what did I do? I worked toward moving back. Worked toward going back to that boy. I believed that he cared for me like no one else ever had. I believed that he wanted to save me from the darkness. I was wrong, obviously.

How can he wat to save me from something that he was not aware of? I never spoke to him about my problems, only ever spoke to him about his own. I began to care more for him than myself. Cared more for our relationship than my sisters and my mother. My wish for happiness, and a quick fix for my darkness, covered my eyes with a blindfold. A metaphorical one, but a blindfold nonetheless.

The say that love makes you blind, but I disagree, I thing selfishness blinds us. My love for the boy was selfish in nature. Yet, I was selfish to my sisters, mother and myself. I did not know that it was possible to be selfish toward one’s own self until after my relationship with that boy was over.

So, we moved. And my darkness returned. With a vengeance. I found it harder and harder to return to reality. It was worst than it had ever been. I’d forgotten how to fight against it. Even if I had remembered, I think it would have done little help. The darkness had grown once again. Had grown stronger, darker. And I had grown weaker, while hiding from it.

My youngest sisterI do not remember much during this time with her, other than the fact that she and my second sister grew closer. She, it seemed, was able to take solace in her relationship with my second sister. They worked together, combating their darkness. While Icried a lot.

Even when they tried to bring me into their circle, bring me back from that terrible world my mind and spirit fled to without my permission, I refused, I wanted only to go back to that boy. To go back to not having to fight anymore.

So, we were there, in a new home, a new town. My mother, sisters and myself. There was another with us, my mother’s soon to be new husband. He did not understand the darkness, did not know about it before. I do not know if he knew the extent of how far it had consumed us. He did not understand why my mother was the way she was. Why she couldn’t get up on some days, while others she was as mean as a rattlesnake and just as loud. My youngest sister stayed by her side, while myself and my second sister decided to leave. The man, not understand why we were the way we were, did not get along with my youngest sister and drove a wedge between her and my mother at a time when my mother needed my sister’s support the most.

I did not care that my mother was spiraling faster and faster, down further and further. I only wanted to return to the boy that I had left behind. I did not know that sometimes, what we see as reality and what really is reality, even when we are in a present state of mind, can still be very wrong and misleading.